


A Collection of Neverwere Memories

by A_Beautiful_Irony



Category: Captive Prince
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, All Ideas Up For Grabs to fellow writers, Angst, Auguste Lives (sometimes), Basically everyone wants Damen and Laurent, Drabbles, Fate & Destiny, Fluff and Tragedy, Hurt/Comfort, I just needed to get this out because it wouldn’t let me sleep, Jealousy, Kindof Sortof a Writing Challenge, M/M, Pining, Requited and Unrequited Love, Soulmate AU, The Most Tragic Soulmate AU, Title and Concept Title are just about pretentious enough for my purposes I think, Tragedy Ensues, but Damen and Laurent only want each other, star-crossed lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-01-04 01:00:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 11,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21188918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Beautiful_Irony/pseuds/A_Beautiful_Irony
Summary: A collection of one-shots set in a world where soulmates exist, but there are no physical signs - until one of them dies. Damen, Laurent, and the people closest to them have to find ways to navigate these murky waters, sometimes smoothly, sometimes crashing together with the violence of a storm.





	1. Overview

**Author's Note:**

> Other people:  
“Soulmate AU where you can only see color after meeting your soulmate!”
> 
> Me:  
“Soulmate AU where you never know for sure who your soulmate is until one of you DIES.”
> 
> I don’t know what’s wrong with me either.
> 
> Also! This Soulmate AU concept and all of the ficlets I’ve written here are intended to be used as inspiration and writing prompts. So if anything inspires you, please feel free to take as much or as little from any/all of them for use in your own stories! Please just consider crediting me for the original idea, especially if you choose to use one of my specific storyline ideas.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here’s the breakdown of how this AU works; feel free to skip ahead to the next chapter if you’re just here to read the ficlets.

The general concept for this AU is as follows:

There is no physical sign marking soulmates while both individuals live, but as soon as one of the pair dies, the other suddenly feels all of the love for them they would have ever come to feel, and all the memories with them they ever would have come to make, had they lived their lives together as Fate intended. It doesn’t matter if they’ve never met, or even seen one another before - once one half of the pair dies, the other feels the love, and the pain of knowing that love is now lost, all of a sudden, wherever they are.

Some people do end up finding their soulmates and living full lives together, or as full as Fate ever intended them to have. But Fate can be challenged, and so it does happen sometimes that people lose their soulmate too early, and are thusly plagued with memories and feelings they will never get to experience first hand; that, coupled with the knowledge that they will never find a love with anyone else equal to the love they have now lost.

So, no one ever knows whether they’re really spending their lives with their perfect partner until the day one of them dies, and _if _one of them dies, the living partner is left with the knowledge that there really will never be any love deeper than that, for them, ever again. 

And if they realize they’re with someone who is _not_ truly their soulmate, then they will forever be plagued by the knowledge of what _could _have been. And the person they’ve been with this whole time is also faced with the fact that _their_ true soulmate is out there somewhere, and that soulmate is not the person they’re currently with; the person they may have been with for years, with whom they may have already built a life. 

And what do they do now?

\- OPTIONAL: a terrible bruise forms on the living half’s chest, over their heart, once their soulmate dies. And never, ever fades.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, on with the little ficlets and concepts (all of which are up for grabs to anyone who’d like to take them and run with them.)


	2. Damen Swears Vengeance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you do with the memories you acquire when your soulmate dies? What of the secrets they will never tell you, but that you know all the same? What of the crimes? And how do you seek vengeance for a crime whose only proof exists within the confines of your own, mercurial memory?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like SO much could be done to expand this one. I almost feel like I’m doing it a disservice to post it here in such a bare-bones state, but I’m tired and have not the conviction to actually write it myself just now. So here you go. Have it.

Damen, Prince Killer and hero of Akielos these past seven years, is all set to marry Jokaste and begin the process of learning the true art of Kingship from his ailing father.

Then one black, Fateless day in April, the heir to Vere’s throne, Crown Prince Laurent, dies messily in a tragic hunting accident.

And Damen’s entire world shatters.

Vere’s former Regent takes the throne, and only Damen, with his seeming bottomless well of memories-never-to-be, knows the truth of that evil man.

But how can Damen act on this knowledge, present nowhere but in the confines of his own mind? In the absolute, unprovable clarity of his conviction?

And how can he avenge the love he will never have, yet will ever have lost? How can he, when he cannot even seem to breathe through the pain of all that has never been, but could have been, and _should_ have been, and will never, ever be? 


	3. The Regent’s Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when a child is lied to about their soulmate? What might happen when evil people take what is meant to be life’s greatest gift, Fate’s greatest double-edged sword, and turn it to their own ends?

After Auguste’s death, the Regent tries to convince Laurent that _he_ is Laurent’s soulmate. Laurent is so young, and finds himself paralyzed by the force of his uncle’s seeming conviction. The possibility haunts him throughout his childhood and well into adulthood, lurking around every corner. 

Leering at him. 

Laurent fights for years to deny the insidious thought. And falling in love with Damen nearly convinces him once and for all that his Uncle was truly lying. 

But still, that endless, gnawing doubt remains. Despite himself, Laurent wonders... and fears.

It is not until the day Damen and Laurent take Ios, and Laurent watches his uncle’s head part ways with his neck, that Laurent knows for sure. That he can finally, finally fall to his knees and shed tears of boundless, overwhelming relief.

And of triumph.

At last!

When he sees Damen next, he knows in his soul who his truest love is and will always be.

And when Damen passes peacefully in his sleep, many decades and grey hairs later, Laurent knows. Clutching Damen’s hand to his slowly bruising chest, Laurent knows once and for all that he was right.


	4. Damen & Auguste Engaged - But Not Fated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when you discover that the person you love is not the person you’re Fated for? What happens when you discover it in the worst possible way?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one’s long. It’s almost a full fic in itself. Strap in, folks.

Damen, Crown Prince of Akielos, has been engaged to the Crown Prince Auguste of Vere these past seven years. He is happy, and more than pleased to have averted war with the promise of his impending nuptials.

And on top of all of that - he thinks he may really have found his soulmate in Auguste.

He does not see much of the younger prince. While Laurent is striking and, at twenty, admittedly closer to Damen in age than Auguste, Laurent tends to keep to his rooms and his books.

Auguste has told Damen that Laurent has harbored a boyhood crush on Damen almost since the moment he first laid eyes on him - but that he is unwilling to act on his feelings because of Damen’s betrothal to his brother. 

Damen feels for the young man - almost wishes they might have had a chance to dally with one another for a time, in that theoretical interval between their meeting and his inevitably falling for Auguste.

Regardless, the fact now remains that Damen hardly knows the younger prince. He hopes they might come to be friends some day.

Then, the unthinkable happens.

It is such a little thing - a sip of tea intended for his brother, Auguste. A moment of laughter cut off, a choked breath, shock. A moment of fear, and a breathless, “Auguste—.”

Breathless because there is no air left.

Damen, driven by a force he cannot name, stronger than anything short of the wrenching tug of Fate, launches himself across the table, knocking Laurent out of even Auguste’s hands. Damen collapses, panting, jealously guarding Laurent’s shaking form against his chest.

Auguste is shouting, falling to his knees beside them, but Damen barely sees him, too consumed by the desperate, soul-deep need to clutch, to cradle that paler golden head within the useless circle of his own arms.

Too late.

What good is all of Damen’s strength when the man he loves, the only man he will ever love...

Laurents’ blue eyes - so blue, how had he never noticed before? - go wide, and they stare at Damen as though seeing him for the first time. Damen takes his hand.

Laurent looks awed, engulfed in some emotion Damen cannot name and does not need to, for he feels it radiating just as brightly from himself. Laurent reaches a hand up to brush against Damen’s cheek as the memories - half-memories, not-memories - overtake them.

“No,” Damen gasps. He grips Laurent’s hand in his own, feeling it go limp and still. “No!”

“Damen,” Laurent whispers, a smile playing at his perfect lips. There are tears falling from the corners of his eyes, from pain or from poison, and Damen cries a third time,

“No!”

He takes Laurent’s face in his hands.

“Laurent!”

But Laurent’s eyes are closing, slowly, as though falling into a deep sleep.

“Damia...” barely a breath. Damen surges downward, his mouth angled to swallow that sound, to press against those lips and wake him up.

“No, Damen!” Auguste’s voice. Auguste’s hands, pulling and wrenching him backward, away from Laurent’s tranquil form.

Memories are flashing by in a whirlwind of chaos, kisses shared and almost shared, conversations long and short, arguments and reconciliations; tousled sheets in the night, wandering hands in the morning; and reminiscences, so many reminiscences... The two of them old and looking back over the life they’ve led together, all that love...

Damen needs to wake him up.

Auguste is in his way.

Auguste and servants and soldiers are all in his way, all with hands on him, pulling him up and away from the man on the floor, the most important person, Damen’s soulmate —

“Damen, you can’t!” August is saying. “You can’t, you’ll be poisoned too.”

“Then let me be,” Damen cries, fighting. “Let me!”

They do not let him.

They drag him away while a physician with a hat like bread and a face like bleached paper begins a series of frantic maneuvers that are already too little too late. And then...

Damen is still engaged to Auguste.

And they have to figure out a way to deal with the fact that Auguste will never be to Damen what Laurent could have been, and _should_ have been. Auguste lost Laurent too, but his grief seems to pale in comparison to Damen’s unparalleled heartbreak.

Unparalleled and unearned, it seems to Auguste.

For Auguste loves Damen, but now they cannot even seem to console one another. Auguste loves Damen. And Damen loves Auguste.

But Damen loves Laurent - would have loved Laurent - more than either of them can possibly comprehend.

Damen is shattered. There is no middle ground.

There is no bridging this gap, no painting it over, no politicking.

What are they supposed to do now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternatively:  
Damen and Laurent actually have a somewhat combative relationship, nitpicking one another and trading barbed remarks in the hallways. They don’t exactly dislike each other, but they don’t exactly like each other either. There is a persistent air of mistrust between the two of them. But unmistakably, there is also a kind of shared fascination.


	5. Auguste Pines for Damen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when the person you love has found their soulmate - and their soulmate is not you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Needs fleshing out, but there’s infinite room for pining.

Damen is betrothed to Auguste, and they think they are in love. 

Damen has met Laurent, but the boy is just a child. Although closer to Damen’s age than Auguste is, Laurent is still very young. Young, but intense. Growing up, Laurent does not look at Damen often, but when he does, he stares.

Then Damen comes to visit the court of Vere for the first time in seven years. And Laurent is no longer a child. And Damen is fucking smitten.

They fall in love despite themselves, and it’s all very painful and difficult - for all of them. Auguste tries to be understanding, but he is jealous. He loves Damen too.

He loved Damen first.

But he wants them to be happy - even if he will never be able to get the gnawing doubt and aching hope out of his heart that perhaps, _perhaps_ Damen really _is_ his soulmate, and not Laurent’s. Perhaps he might be proven right...

Auguste hopes he never has occasion to find out.

But...

The thought is there nevertheless, and will remain there, he knows, until the Fateful, awful day that one of the three of them dies. And that day comes far too soon.

When Damen falls from his horse, the court investigators rule it an accident. No one is to blame. No one could have stopped it. But it was not what Fate intended.

They know, because Laurent gets the memories. All the things he and Damen should have done, all the nights and days and years they should have shared - all the love Laurent was meant to feel for Damen over the course of their long, long lives. It all comes to Laurent in an instant of absolute, agonizing clarity.

And Auguste feels lost. Lost and more alone than he ever has before in his life.


	6. The Affair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the love of your life finds their soulmate, what do you do? Do you accept your Fate? What if you can’t? What if you don’t want to? If you make every decision with the best of intentions, or no decision at all for fear of repercussion, are you doing the right thing? Or are you simply tempting Fate?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has an alternate ending with three variants. I’ll list them in the next ‘chapter.’

Auguste and Laurent grow up competing for Prince Damianos’ attention. 

Laurent wins. But their fathers have plans that do not include the younger Veretian Prince. 

Damen is betrothed to Auguste, and Auguste does the one single, selfish thing he will ever do in his life - he doesn’t fight it. He accepts Damen as his betrothed, despite Laurent’s disbelieving pleas, and prepares himself to live a lie; Fully expecting to pretend at not-knowing for the rest of his days.

Not knowing of the dalliances his husband and his brother get up to in the corridors, the gardens, the bedrooms. Not noticing the longing looks at table, the covert touches beneath it. Not seeing the lasting hurt, the guilt, and the resentment in the faces of the two people he loves most in all the world.

Auguste prepares himself for all of this. He does not prepare in vain.

Laurent becomes a stranger to him, a ghost in his halls, a sprite in the library; growing ever brighter in Damen’s eyes as Auguste fades.

Damen shares his bed, his table, his throne - but never his heart. Neither love, nor trust, nor even the barest hint of admiration passes between the two of them from the moment of their vows - Auguste’s longwinded and heartfelt, Damen’s brief, fleeting, and formal - to the moment Fate finally comes for them. 

Auguste tells himself he is happy. 

It never works; but he cannot give it up. He lies in bed alone most nights, and tries to tell himself he has a right to feel betrayed.

He never believes himself. The day Damen falls from his horse, riding it hard down the crooked road to Aquitart and Laurent, no one else believes him either.

Laurent kneels, collapsed at Damen’s bedside, at Damen’s casket, at Damen’s wake, and no one tries to rouse him. They give Laurent their condolences. They nod to Auguste. And they move away. 

That night, Auguste peels his mourning clothes away from himself, the jacket, the vestcloak, the shirt. He stares at his chest in the lamplight, running fingers over his heart. 

His pale, unblemished, unworthy, unbruised heart. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, you could choose to have Laurent die instead - but I thought this was more poignant and more absolute. I would also love to see a version of this where all three of them are in on it, knowing that Damen and Auguste’s marriage is a farce to appease their fathers, and no one is resentful about it. At least, not too much. They all stay great friends, while Auguste quietly pines away, his heart breaking more each day, and starkly refusing to show it because he wants his baby brother to be happy.


	7. Fallout From the Affair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when great men fight their Fate?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three alternative endings to the previous chapter. I kindof dislike how little agency Laurent had in these, so I might end up changing them somewhat at some point. But feel free to take whatever you like, if you like, and run with it.

When the Kings of Vere and Akielos formally betroth Auguste to Damianos against Damianos’ will, Auguste prepares; he prepares himself for Damen’s glowers and Laurent’s betrayed blue eyes. For the nights and days and years he will spend watching the two of them disappear around a corner, through an archway, behind his back.

For catching glimpses of their embraces, snippets of conversation not meant for overhearing. For waking up to cool sheets and a blazing heart; the feel of muffled, rhythmic thumping through the King’s adjoining walls. He will swallow it all down and give them what they want. And in his heart, that secret cask of jealousy from which to drink his fill.

Auguste prepares himself for all of this.

But he cannot prepare himself for Damen’s reaction - a violent refusal, a stalwart declaration of intent to marry Laurent and no other, and damn the consequences. King Aleron declares war on Akielos, locking Laurent away in the palace, and Damen vows to defeat him and take Laurent away from Vere.

* Three options:

1) Damen dies fighting Auguste at Marlas. He was pulling his strikes. His death is accidental, but it is by Auguste’s hand nevertheless. Neither he nor Laurent can ever forgive him for it.

2) Auguste refuses to fight Damen one-on-one, and so Damen dies leading his troops on the field. Laurent runs into the melee to assist him, but Auguste drags him back to safety behind the lines of battle with his bare hands.

Neither of them will ever know what would have happened, had Auguste not refused the opportunity to fight Damen honorably, one-on-one. Neither of them ever forgives him for his cowardice. 

3) Damen steals into the palace one night to try and run away with Laurent, but Auguste finds them. He duels Damen in the throne room and accidentally wounds him beyond repair. And when Laurent gets the memories and the endless pain, Auguste finally discovers the true extent of his jealousy. And of his failure.

Laurent, Auguste’s baby brother, cradles the broken body of his love in his arms, kneeling in the blood pooled at Auguste’s feet. With all the love Laurent ever would, and could, and _should_ have come to feel for Damianos over the course of all the days and months and years of their long, long lives together, Laurent sobs.

“How could you do this, Auguste? You’re my brother! He was my soulmate!” 

Auguste has no answer. But he finally understands. He knows now. Auguste was supposed to refuse the betrothal. He was supposed to be strong, to be wise, to make the right decision. That was what Fate intended. For Auguste to fulfil his role.

As his brother’s keeper. His best friend’s first love. His nation’s hero. 

Auguste is none of those things, now. He has turned his back on Fate. Spurned it, crushed it under his boot heel in favor of attempting to steal his baby brother’s soulmate.

In his selfishness, in his cowardice, Auguste has cost himself everything he ever hoped to protect.

Auguste turned his back on Fate. And so Fate turned its back on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell which of the three is my favorite?


	8. Nikandros Pines for Damen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when Fate doesn’t run both ways?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, yesterday: “Eh, I probably won’t post more of these for a while. I can’t really think of anything else.”
> 
> My Brain at two o’clock in the fucking morning: “You don’t need sleep! You need SIX more chapters of this angsty soulmate shit!” 
> 
> Here it is folks, have at ye.

Nikandros knows he is not Damen’s soulmate, but he cannot seem to accept it. He cannot imagine loving anyone as much as he loves Damen, let alone more. He doesn’t want to. It would be too much to bear.

Perhaps Damen is his soulmate, but... he is not Damen’s. Nik wonders, can it work like that? He doesn’t know.

What he does know is that Damen has found his soulmate, and it is not Nikandros.

The more he sees Laurent and Damen together, the more he knows - those two are Fated. They have the look of it. They have the _sound_ of it, gods. And the more he watches them - catches them together out of the corner of his eye, overhears them whispering in the empty council chamber - the more he knows.

The way Laurent looks at Damen... Nikandros looks at Damen that way too. When no one else is watching, and he can let himself just look, in meagre scraps and snatches. Nik knows he must look just like Laurent. Gazing at Damen. Longing for him.

But the only person Damen sees that way is Laurent.

Time and again, Nikandros waits for Damen to catch him staring - to catch him out. He almost wants Damen to catch him out. To see...

And to return the look? Or to turn away, to shoot Nik down and release him from this hopeless, constant ‘what if,’ once and for all? 

Nikandros can’t quite make himself examine which outcome he would rather have.

It doesn’t matter anyway. Nikandros is resigned. If Damen is Nik’s Fate, then this must be the role Fate has intended for him to play: the supportive arm. The second-best. Nikandros is Damen’s loyal servant in all things, and if his place is to stay by Damen’s side and protect his truest happiness, then that is what Nikandros will commit his life to doing.

That is his greatest purpose.

If Damen is Nik’s soulmate, then Nik accepts his Fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably, Nik eventually finds his soulmate in this version and they live happily ever after together, just because I want Nikandros to have nice things. 
> 
> But by all means, if you’d rather make him miserable, you can kill Damen off and have Nik shatter at the realization that, not only has he lost his best friend, but Damen really WASN’T his soulmate after all. All’s fair.


	9. Nikandros Learns Young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when you lose your soulmate young? Too young to fully process it, too young to understand. How must it be, to grow up knowing that anyone whom you come to love is not your Fate? Knowing anyone who comes to love you is being kept from theirs?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly darker version of the previous chapter.

The bruise forms on Nikandros’ chest early in life.

One moment, he and Damen are playing at being swordsmen, pelting one another with wooden swords on the sawdust at the palace of Ios. The next, Nik is falling to the ground, eyes wide, clutching a small hand over his bewildered heart.

Damen falls to his knees beside him, shaking him, desperate to know what is wrong with his best friend.

Nik cannot answer - he is utterly confused, overtaken by memories of being a man, a soldier, of bouncing a toddler on one knee while a woman... the most magnificent woman he has never seen... smiles at him from a bedroom’s balcony.

Their bedroom, their balcony. Their child? Nikandros’ and this woman’s... Kiata. That is her name. Waves of lush, dark hair and the most beautiful eyes, liquid amber in the candlelight. Wit like a whip, and a smile like a slice of the sun.

He learns later that she was Meniados’ youngest daughter. They would have met in the summer, ten years hence. It would have been breezy that day.

Instead, in bleakest reality, as Nik and Damen exchanged childish blows in the courtyard, Kiata and her elder sisters were riding toward the river. Too soon after the spring thaw from the mountains, the current was swift, the river deeper than it looked.

And colder.

In the exuberance of youth, Kiata tumbled into the water before her sisters had even managed to remove their shoes.

The shock of the freezing rush must have been terrible.

But Nikandros doesn’t feel that pain, doesn’t see that death. He only gets what could have been. What Fate itself says should have been.

He sees them happy, as they never will be, now.

He’s never met her. They are the same age - were the same age. And they lived less than ten miles from one another all their lives. And yet he has never once seen her living face with his own eyes. 

And now he never will. Now, Nikandros only sees ghosts.

So. Nik lost her young.

So young, in fact, that the love and the torment eventually come to... fade. In a way. Or perhaps, that love simply... moves? Reassigns itself?

As they grow older, Nik finds himself looking at Damen more. Looking at Damen differently.

He watches Damianos, his Prince, his future King, grow from a great friend to a great man. He fills Nik’s eyes. Fills his senses.

Damen never takes Nik to his bed, and Nikandros never puts forth the suggestion. He is too... afraid? He doesn’t know for sure. He doesn’t examine it.

He is much gladder to examine the way Damianos rides his horse, hips swaying, sword swinging; the way he laughs, the way he smiles, like a slice of - no, like the whole sun, brought down out of the sky to blind Nikandros. When Damen wrestles, he puts men in the dirt and sits astride them, always offering a hand to help them up once he has, inevitably, won.

Nikandros doesn’t stare. He examines Damen’s form. For errors. For weak spots. So that the next time Damen wrestles him, Nik will have a higher chance of defeating the undefeated champion, if he can concentrate without getting distracted—

Nikandros shakes his head. No good.

Nik knows Damen’s soulmate is out there somewhere. He only hopes Damen has a chance to find them before...

And yet.

Sometimes, in the darkest hours of the night, Nikandros thinks of what it would be like. If Damen were to fall to his knees one day, the bruise blooming high and hard on his chest, all possibilities gone...

They would have that in common, then. They would understand one another beyond measure, Damen would finally _understand_ Nikandros...

Nikandros always stops this thought.

So, when Damen finds Laurent, Nikandros feels...

Nikandros doesn’t know what he feels.

He doesn’t examine the way Laurent looks at Damen. So soft. Blue eyes so full of an emotion that Nikandros recognizes but doesn’t know how to name. 

He doesn’t examine the way Laurent watches Nikandros, either, drawing closer to Damen’s side when Nik approaches, or placing proprietary fingers over Damen’s wrist at table. 

The day Laurent begins to cough, Nikandros doesn’t examine it. The physicians will cure him, and everything will go on just the same. 

Nikandros follows Damen through the echoing halls of the palace at Ios, pacing back and forth outside the Kings’ bedchamber. Back and forth.

Nik tries his hardest to comfort his best friend in his anxiety. But Damen isn’t coping well.

Nikandros knows the feeling. 

The day Damen doesn’t get out of bed, Nikandros goes looking for him. He finds his King in their bed, his and Laurent’s bed, surrounded by people. Servants weeping. Physicians standing, headed by a pale and grim Paschal. Their hands stilled with nothing left to do. 

Damianos sits, or moreso lies, cradling a small, pale figure in his arms. A soft golden head pillowed on his shoulder. Damen’s limbs seem to wrap themselves around Laurent’s still form as though to draw the smaller man inside himself, pressed against his heaving chest as though to share a heartbeat.

Damen seems small in that great bed. A tight, hard knot of anguish, his body shaking, wracked with sobs that split Nikandros’ chest apart. 

The day dawns cool and grey outside the window. An unseasonable drizzle starts up, pattering all but soundlessly against the balcony. The curtains flutter, getting wet. 

Nikandros watches with the rest of them, iron and wood, frozen blood and bone, as Damen weeps.

He moves, once. Shifting Laurent briefly away from his chest, cradled out in front of him so that Damen can brush unruly golden strands away from that vicious, silent mouth. He kisses his face, tiny closed-mouth kisses, leaving teardrops in their wake. Trailing droplets like stars across his eyelids, nose, and lips. Cheekbones, forehead, temples shining with now-cold sweat from a fever that wouldn’t break. 

When Damen pulls away, there are sparkling droplets caught within Laurent’s pale lashes.

In the moments before Damen moves the body back into his arms, to its rightful place against his heart, Nikandros looks. And sees it.

The bruise looks painful, dark as spreading stormclouds. It grows and grows. And darkens. 

And it will never, ever fade. Nikandros knows. 

The mark on his own chest weighs heavy on his mind, as it hasn’t done in years.

Nikandros doesn’t... he doesn’t examine it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would also love to see the ending of this one switched up, so that Nikandros is in love with LAURENT, and has to watch Damen weep over him instead. Has to see Damen’s chest bruise, slowly, to match his own. Knowing what his best friend is feeling. Knowing he cannot help it. And feeling guilty as all hell for being JEALOUS.


	10. Nikandros Covets Damen - Kingsmeet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What would you do if you were certain you’d found your soulmate - but they didn’t agree? Would you fight for your Fate? And what if, in the end, you were wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another, even darker version of the previous chapter. Poor Nik can’t catch a break.
> 
> Side note: Let’s play a game called “How many times can the author possibly use the word ‘cradle?’” I’ve already lost count. It may be time to consult my handy-dandy thesaurus. What do you think?

Nikandros grows up loving Damen.

So when Damen falls for Laurent, Nikandros cannot accept it. He _cannot_ accept that Damen could love this vile, cold, snake of a man. Unrepentant, undeserving of Damen’s love. He can’t be Damen’s soulmate. Nikandros couldn’t take it if he were.

Damen deserves someone good, someone kind and giving. Someone who knows him, who understands that he is King, that he is above all others. Someone like—

Well. Not Laurent.

Nikandros cannot accept it, and so he grows increasingly desperate to prove that Laurent is not the paragon of virtue Damen, despite all glaring evidence to the contrary, seems to regard him as.

In a last, mad attempt at protecting the man he has served all his life, the man he will protect to the last, whom he loves like — like a —

Nikandros corners Laurent in the dark the night before the Kingsmeet. When he sees Laurent rise, sees him leave Damen’s arms and wander to the far side of the camp, Nik is suspicious. When Laurent approaches the wagons, Nik follows him there.

Nik watches Laurent move to let Jokaste escape.

Without warning, without thought, high on the wave of his self-righteous fury, Nikandros attempts to slay the golden beast where he stands. But his cut is wild. Laurent staggers back, bleeding freely from the gash in his shoulder. Damen wakes at the sound of Laurent’s shout of pain, and barrels past Nikandros to cradle Laurent in his arms.

Shirtless in the hot summer night, Damen attempts to close the gaping wound with his bare hands. He is not doing a fantastic job at it. Luckily, Paschal is on hand to do a much better job. But Laurent is already going grey.

Replaced at Laurent’s side by the physician, Damen takes the opportunity to tackle Nikandros to the ground in a blaze of inarticulate fury, demanding an explanation.

At first, Nikandros is just as angry. Livid, even, with his King. His King, who has never once made a single good decision when it comes to interpersonal relationships, in his life.

He fights Damen. But soon all of Nik’s rage, his years of frustration and hurt and anger, begin to drain out of him, to be replaced by a growing horror. Fascinated and appalled, Nik watches a small, darkening bruise take form on the skin over Damen’s heart. And start to spread.

** Two Options:

1) Paschal is able to bring Laurent back from the brink of death, and all is fine and dandy.

Maybe they even get to avert the disaster of the Kingsmeet, because Damen was able to see in his ‘neverwere memories’ what the Regent is about to do inside the Kingsmeet’s walls. That would be a whole other can of worms for Damen and Laurent to deal with, emotionally. So in this version, maybe Damen and Laurent actually get ‘a fate _better_ than Fate.’

Nikandros, of course, does not. I don’t imagine Damen will ever trust him again, and now Nik will have to live with the knowledge that he has lost his best friend, and his honor, and it is _all his fault_.

And on top of that, he now knows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Damen really wasn’t ever his soulmate after all - Laurent was.

Or maybe you, like me, want Nik to actually have nice things, because he doesn’t deserve the torment which I heap unceremoniously upon him. So you have Damen forgive him, knowing Nikandros was only trying his best to protect Damen and his country. Maybe Nik learns the error of his ways, and devotes his life to proving Damen right about him - that he is worthy of a second chance. 

And maybe he eventually finds his true soulmate, and they all live happily ever after! That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

2) Laurent dies, and Damen never gets over it. Vere and Akielos go to war to avenge his lost love, and Damen dies tragically in battle.

He falls to the muddy ground with his scarlet lion standard in tatters, Laurent’s name filling his lungs, and trailing over his blood-flecked lips.

All because Nikandros betrayed him.

In his agony, Damen turned Nikandros off from the company without a second glance. Nik never gets to fight in the batte for his own redemption, for he is allowed nowhere near Damen’s standard. And Damen is therefore left without his closest friend and ally in the moment he most needs Nikandros’ cooler head and steadying guidance.

Unable to advise him, unable to protect him at the last, Nik swallows his ultimate failure. 

It is Nikandros’ fault.

It is all Nikandros’ fault. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depends on how heartwrenching you like your one-sided Damen/Nikandros stories.


	11. Kastor Covets Laurent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What would you do if you thought you might have a second chance at a soulmate? The first one may be lost, but what if Fate were to give you another? 
> 
> Or at least... what if you thought Fate did?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is long, and I’m probably going to add even more to it, as its own fic, at some point. However, if anyone decides to write their own ideas for this one, I’d love to hear about them! Mostly because I love to see Kastor miserable. In fact, I feel like I really could have upped the ante with this one in the angst department. But I was having too much fun. Maybe next time.

Kastor’s soulmate dies young.

So when he meets Prince Laurent for the first time, accompanying Damen on a dignitaries’ venture to Vere for the purpose of organizing better trade routes, Kastor knows what his soulmate was supposed to have looked like.

And by the gods, she would have looked exactly like Laurent.

Jokaste was supposed to have been beautiful, all blonde hair and blue eyes, with words like poison in a mouth like honey. And it takes all but two minutes of hearing the young man speak to know that he resembles Kastor’s should-have-been bride in that respect as well.

Kastor stares at the Prince, speechless and utterly transfixed. 

But Laurent barely looks at him, his gaze instead landing fixedly on Kastor’s younger brother beside him. And as usual, that is apparently all it takes.

From that first meeting onward, the Second Prince of Vere seems to do nothing but eviscerate their trade proposals and blatantly flirt with Damianos. He barely gives Kastor a chance to get a word in edgewise.

Kastor can’t stand it.

When his brother and the Prince make eyes at one another across the high table at meals, he wants to retch. Or hurt something. Damianos, by preference.

Kastor gazes at Prince Laurent’s profile - his profile, because Laurent’s attention is not focused on him, but on the man across from him, Kastor’s younger brother, heir to the throne of Akielos. The legitimate son. The wanted one. 

Always the wanted one.

Kastor imagines Laurent is familiar with that sentiment. With a face like that, he can’t possibly be short on suitors. His father the King will have had proposals for his hand pouring in from every corner of the continent from the time Laurent was old enough to walk. The blond hair alone...

Laurent is speaking, and then something Damen says makes him laugh - actually laugh, full-throated and surprised, as though shocked to hear the sound coming from himself. The sparkle of delight in his blue eyes takes Kastor’s breath away.

Kastor looks back and forth between the two of them. He has missed something.

How did Damen manage to make him laugh? Kastor’s never made the Prince laugh.

It isn’t fair.

Damen and Laurent are grinning at one another like a pair of fools. Kastor glowers down at his plate and spears a delicate slice of meat on his fork.

Laurent should be his. It’s Fate, it must be. Fate made a mistake with his first soulmate, and now the laws of the world are making it up to him by finally giving Kastor his due. His second chance. 

Why else would this be happening? Why place the very image of his beloved Jokaste, her grace and wit and beauty made again into this man, if not for Kastor to have him? Damen has everything else! He cannot have this too.

Yet apparently, Damen does.

Over the course of their stay, made longer by late evenings and many suspiciously late mornings, it becomes plainly obvious to Kastor that Damen does, in fact, have Laurent.

On those late mornings, for instance, the two of them never actually arrive together, but their separate arrivals are always within a tellingly few minutes of one another. On those late nights, they never leave exactly arm-in-arm, but it is understood by all and sundry that once one of them wanders off alone, the other will be equally impossible to find for the rest of the evening.

Some nights, Kastor imagines he can hear faint sounds coming from the room next to his own. Voices and muffled movement. Words he cannot quite make sense of. He imagines he hears a rhythm to them, _“yes, yes,”_ and wonders if that’s only in his head.

But regardless, it is an open secret. The whole fucking castle knows.

That knowledge seethes in Kastor’s blood. It settles in his bones, a rough and heavy grit, making him ache.

He hates this. He hates watching them watching one another, smiling for no discernible reason, smirking at their own private jokes. Sometimes their banter sounds more like barbs to Kastor. He cannot imagine what they possibly get up to between the sheets.

Except... that he can, and the fantasies make him bite the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood.

He can all too clearly picture the creamy expanses of Laurent’s smooth skin, dusted with golden candlelight, writhing beneath a hard, dark body. Being held down by the wrists, his pink lips parting, the sounds he would make. Breathy and out of control, _“Kastor, Kastor...”_

“Damen,” Laurent’s true voice, stationed firmly in the here and now, cuts through Kastor’s reverie. “There’s a breadcrumb on your shirt.”

As Kastor watches in dismay, Laurent reaches across the council table to pluck a speck from Damen’s chest. He pops the offending morsel casually into his own mouth, his index finger lingering.

Damen smiles sheepishly, and Laurent sighs, his expression going fond.

“Maybe if you would wear real clothing,” Laurent says. “Instead of wandering around in just a shirt and vestcloak, like a heathen, you wouldn’t have this problem. With a jacket, there wouldn’t be so much fabric billowing about to catch at things.”

The words sound well-worn, hopeless of making any real impact; an old argument.

Damen merely chuckles in response. His smile has become an absolute smirk, and Kastor clenches his fist beneath the table to disguise the wave of hatred that passes over him at the private gleam in Damen’s eyes.

“I can’t wait to see your reaction to what I wear while in Akielos,” Damen says. Though it is very plain to Kastor - and, he fears, to Laurent as well - that Damen is not actually envisioning _himself_ in that implied chiton.

Laurent, mercifully, does not respond. This time.

But it only gets worse as the days progress, until Kastor fears he may go mad.

He watches the two of them grow increasingly desperate, acutely aware of the fact of their time running out. 

And increasingly less subtle about displaying that desperation for one another, in decidedly inappropriate places.

Kastor loses track of the number of times he catches them locked together in the hallways, the gardens, the library. Barely half-hidden inside an alcove or behind a statue, and on one exceptional occasion, right outside the door to Damen’s chambers.

Kastor can’t help but stumble onto that one, Damen’s chambers being right next to his own. And it being broad daylight and all. 

They are kissing, Laurent pressed bodily up against the wall with his toes nearly off the floor, one leg hitched around Damen’s hip for leverage. He looks like an illustration from one of those explicit Veretian ‘poetry’ collections the library here is so fond of.

But on this particular occasion, Laurent, for once, looks up with those burning eyes for long enough to see Kastor staring.

Kastor’s heart leaps into his mouth. He is overtaken by the sudden, searing fantasy of Laurent shoving Damianos away, turning from him without a second glance to stalk toward Kastor instead, mouth open, eyes dark —

But the real Laurent merely reaches behind himself for the door handle. He is still watching Kastor, his eyes wary, like a predatory cat assessing the severity of a threat.

And then they dismiss him, that blue gaze going through him with enough indifference to pierce Kastor to his core. 

Without removing his body from Damen’s hold, without even breaking the kiss, Laurent pushes the door open behind himself, leans backward, and drags Damianos with him into the bedchamber.

The door closes again with a soft click. Kastor doesn’t even think they bother to lock it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also feel like this desperately needs an interlocking Nikandros POV because how FUCKING FUNNY would it be if Nik’s bitchy running monologue were constantly interposed with Kastor’s melodramatic self-pity? Kastor is all ‘I watched in dismay as Laurent was so sexy toward Damianos, and it wasn’t even fair,’ and Nik is all ‘I watched in dismay as Laurent was so disgustingly forward with my idiot best friend, because I did NOT need to see that, we were supposed to be discussing trade routes, WHY am I here, please just go fuck in your goddamn room, I don’t deserve this.’


	12. Nikandros Covets Laurent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If your life is spent focused on the one person who doesn’t love you, you may well miss your true Fate slowly slipping away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet MORE tragic Nikandros. It really needs more fleshing out, and I will almost definitely do that at some point. Still - this one is my favorite of his vignettes.

Nikandros knows Laurent is his soulmate, almost from the first moment he sees him.

But by then, it is already too late. Laurent has chosen Damen, and Nikandros... Nikandros sees how happy Laurent makes Damen. And Damen deserves to be happy. It is all Nik has ever wanted for him. Well, that and for his best friend to grow even a shred of a sense of self-preservation.

But Nik is Damen’s soldier, Damen’s servant, and best friend. Nikandros would do anything for him.

And so, Nik decides to let Damen have Laurent, Fate be damned.

But the pining never ends. It only grows worse. It weighs on his mind and sits heavy in his stomach, making him sick. Some days, Nikandros can barely look at them together.

And then one day, Nikandros finally cannot bear it anymore. He does the only thing he can think of to make the hurting stop.

He tells Damen the truth of what he feels.

Damen is extremely upset, torn between wanting to make his best friend happy, and his love for Laurent.

But Laurent makes the decision for him.

Laurent tells Nikandros, in no uncertain terms, that he is no man’s soulmate but Damianos’. And if such a man did exist, Laurent would turn from them in an instant in favor of Damianos, all the same.

He wants no one else. He needs no one else. He will accept no one else.

Things are extremely strained between the three of them for many months afterward, but they try to make it work.

Still, Nikandros cannot convince himself that he was wrong. And he still longs for Laurent every day, and hates himself for it.

He loves Damianos. He loves Laurent. They cannot both be true, he thinks. And yet, he has no other explanation.

Until one day, Nik wakes from ugly dreams to feel a throbbing pain in his chest. When he pries his tired eyes open and looks downward, his heart stops.

A terrible bruise is slowly forming on his chest, with no warning and no explanation.

Panicked, not even registering the sudden flood of not-quite-memories careening through his skull, Nikandros flings himself out of his chambers and into the corridor. Half-naked and panting, he rockets past the startled guards and bursts through the doors of the Kings’ bedchamber.

Only to find both Damen and Laurent in a perfectly amiable, and perfectly intense state of undress.

Laurent sits up, his trembling thighs splayed on either side of Damen’s hips, and twists at the waist to glower at Nikandros. Damen, straddled and effectively pinned, looks mortified at the intrusion.

Nikandros stares at Laurent. Alive, alive.

Alive, supremely pissed, and demanding an explanation.

Nikandros simply doesn’t have one.

He clutches one hand over his heart and finally takes a moment to pay attention to the torrent of images swirling through his head.

The face in his memories, his not-memories, his Fated memories, is...

Not Laurent.

It’s a woman, and not even a stranger. She is... was? A member of his own household. A servant scribe of minor noble birth.

A memory, a not-memory, comes unbidden to the forefront - a conversation they would have had some months from now. The two of them sitting before the fireplace at Nikandros’ own estate, cuddled together beneath a pile of downy blankets. He sees her dark eyes shining in the flickering light, bronzing her dark skin. He hears her voice telling him the story of how she came to fall for him.

She tells him she had pined after him for nearly a year before he finally came to notice her one day at court; he had just come from the Kings’ chambers, looking crestfallen and utterly distraught. She had been so worried for him - she’d ordered him wine, asked after the events.

He hadn’t told her. But he had looked at her suddenly, as though seeing her for the first time. He’d said something cryptic about looking to the future instead of the past, and had asked her to dictate a letter for him.

A letter to his Kings, requesting leave to take his household back to his personal estate at Marlas for some months. He’d asked for time to clear his head, so that he might come back to them in a state better fitting his role of friend and advisor. 

Here, now, in the present, Nikandros remembers that night.

It was the night he had told Damen the truth and been unceremoniously rejected by the man he claimed as his soulmate. Nikandros had gone back to his rooms afterward. The scribe, Helena, had ordered him wine. He had asked her for something stronger. 

He had not had her pen a letter.

He had not left the capital with his household, taking her with him and leaving the old ghost of his longing behind.

Nikandros turns and, ignoring the shout of his name behind him, runs full-tilt back to his own rooms.

He finds her there, on the floor of the small, informal parlor. He would have passed her on his panicked way to Laurent’s bedchamber, heedless of the quietly closed door, and of the quieter woman behind it, slowly bleeding into her own skull. 

It was such a little thing.

She’d slipped while carrying a jug of water from the washbasin to the writing desk by the window. She must have hit her head on the stones before she could even cry out.

Nikandros lifts her limp form numbly into his arms. He can’t feel... anything.

He takes her over to his bed and simply sits there, perched on the edge, holding her to his chest as the bruise spreads and spreads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. That hurt.


	13. Auguste Covets Damen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when you try to take Fate into your own hands, despite what your Fated has to say about it?
> 
> To covet is one thing; to pine is another; to reach out and steal is a third altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The one where Auguste loses his goddamn mind.
> 
> Take a deep breath, folks. Here we go.

Auguste is convinced Damen is his soulmate, and refuses to give him up to Laurent.

However, Damen has decided who _his_ soulmate is, and it most certainly is not Auguste.

Damen is frankly unnerved by the change that has come over Auguste in the years since Damen met Laurent. He and Vere’s crown prince were always close - Auguste was his best friend this side of Nikandros. But as soon as Damen began courting his little brother, Auguste... twisted. 

Nowadays, Damen hardly trusts him to be around Laurent, his own once-beloved younger brother. And because of this, Damen announces his plans to marry Laurent and take him away to the court of Ios.

At this news, half out of his mind with guilt and jealousy, Auguste challenges Laurent to a duel for Damen’s hand.

Laurent refuses. So Damen fights him instead.

In his desperation, Auguste fights to win, and ends up accidentally mortally wounding Damen. Laurent shrieks and lunges forward, stumbling as he catches Damen’s full weight in his arms. Distantly, Auguste sees his brother is crying, hears him calling for Paschal.

Nikandros, Damen’s best friend and right hand man, charges forward in a fit of blinding rage and heartbreak, seeking vengeance. Almost without thought, and with precious little effort, Auguste hews him down as well.

The physician is there within moments, tending to both wounded men as best he can in the chaos.

But Auguste knows. Can feel the bruise begin its aching march across his unpierced chest. His smile must be deranged. He can feel the tears streaming down his cheeks.

But Auguste grins. He digs fingers into the fabric over his heart, wrenching the laces apart.

Revealing the proof.

Yes. Yes!

Auguste cannot tell where his triumph ends and his madness begins. All he can think is yes! He was right! He knew he was right! And now he has proven it to everyone. To Laurent. To Damen.

Damen...!

The shocky glee falls away, leaving Auguste staring in horror and appalled fascination as the physician attempts to stitch the man before him, his soulmate, back together again.

Back together after Auguste _cut him down._

“He would have left me,” he hears himself say. “I couldn’t let him...”

“Laurent.” Damen’s voice, a cough, there must be blood coming to his lips. Auguste cannot see. Laurent’s hair is in the way, falling around his face as he leans over Damen.

Kissing him? Auguste frowns.

That is Auguste’s right. Damen is Auguste’s soulmate.

Auguste steps forward and grabs Laurent roughly by the shoulder, prepareing to throw him back. But a hand surges up from the floor, suddenly, to stop him. A large, dark hand.

Auguste follows it down the arm, to the chest. Then to the heart-stoppingly beautiful face.

Damen’s face, contorted with a blackened, roiling rage.

“Do not touch him,” Damen snarls.

There is no blood on his lips. His voice is firm now, hard as granite, hard as the grip on Auguste’s arm. As Auguste’s grip on Laurent’s shoulder.

Slowly, Auguste’s face swings up to look at his baby brother. Laurent’s eyes are closed in pain, a long, continuous wince.

Auguste knows his own strength. His hold on Laurent is hard enough to bruise bone. Auguste could maybe snap his clavicle, if he tried.

Still, Laurent does not release his protective hold of Damen’s body in order to fend Auguste off.

“Let go of him,” Damen growls again, his own grip tightening. He could maybe snap Auguste’s wrist, if he tried. “Now. Or I will put you to my blade, and this time, I will not pull my strikes.”

Auguste stares at him.

How is Damen even talking right now? He’s supposed to be dead. Or dying.

_Is_ he dying?

Auguste glances down at himself again, but the bruise over his heart has not faded. Far from it.

In fact, it only seems to grow darker the longer Auguste stares.

Then the memories come.

Familiar things. Things he recognizes, things he expects. Sparring with Damen, riding with Damen, eating with Damen. Frustratingly, Laurent is always there too. Can Auguste not escape the grasping claws of his younger brother, even within the confines of his own soul’s sight? All of these visions are of the three of them.

No. The four of them. Damen, Auguste, Laurent and—

Auguste steps back in shock, releasing Laurent in an instant. The smaller man, his baby brother, falls forward as Damen sits up, catching him in frantic arms. Blearily, Auguste watches Damen flinch at the pull of his stitches.

The memories are different now. Not real memories but half-ones. Fated ones.

He and Auguste riding alone together. Sitting in the gardens. Sneaking away from the dinner table, stolen sweets within their silken courtiers’ pockets, leaving stains the servants will despair of.

“Don’t worry,” Auguste hears his own voice echoing in his mind.

Years ago. This would have been years ago, just after Damen first declared his intention to formally court Laurent.

“I’m a Prince,” Fate’s Auguste says. “I won’t let you get in trouble.”

“You’re incorrigible,” the other man says. Would have said. If Auguste had given him half a chance, he would have said, “You’re as bad as my own Prince.”

And Auguste would have laughed. Charmed, easy.

“Damen?” He would have asked, just to be difficult. He was a little like Laurent that way, once. “He’s worse than I am. And besides, I think you might just like me better than—“

Not Damen. Not Damen.

Auguste stares at the body, the other body, bleeding out on the floor at his feet.

The one Paschal had tried to save, but had ultimately given up to other, lesser hands, so that he might focus on keeping life within Prince Damianos.

Prince Damianos, the important one. Auguste’s... Not Auguste’s...

“Nikandros,” Damen is saying from somewhere far away. “Where is Nikandros?”

Auguste simply continues to stare, the visions running roughshod over his stumbling, splintered mind. Auguste echoes Damen, too loudly.

“Nikandros.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one could use a lot of fleshing out. I’m mildly obsessed with the idea of Auguste going from the perfect Prince, Laurent’s protector from their uncle, and Damen’s best friend, to the twisted image we see here. That journey would be wild, and if done well, I feel could be incredibly engaging.
> 
> And of course, there are alternate endings. My favorite (and the darkest, big surprise) would probably be this one: 
> 
> Laurent could choose to fight Auguste after all, and either have to kill his beloved brother, or die by said brother’s sword. If he lives, he’ll be shattered with guilt for the rest of his life. If he dies, Auguste will be faced with having killed his most precious person - and then discovering that Laurent really was Damen’s soulmate, and not Auguste. And then, maybe Damen fights Auguste right there, and he also dies, completely derailing Auguste’s entire brain. So Vere and Akielos go to war, Akielos’ armies headed by the enraged and broken-hearted Nikandros. Vere’s armies headed by her truly unhinged King. Their forces clash at Marlas, and Auguste fights Nikandros one-on-one to avenge Damen’s death. And Nikandros dies. And THEN Agusute gets all the memories, and all the love, and all the MOUNTAINS and RIVERS and OCEANS of GUILT! He cut down his baby brother out of jealousy; his best friend and first love out of rejection; and now his soulmate out of a need to place the blame on someone, anyone else. 
> 
> But I like my first version for not being quite so egregiously overwrought and, frankly, extravagantly painful. 
> 
> But tell me your thoughts. I’m curious.


	14. The Political Prisoner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Fate offers you a second chance, but that chance reveals that your greatest enemy is your greatest love - can you reconcile the two?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had this idea, and I thought, “oh, that’s fun.” And then I wrote it down and posted it, here you go.

Laurent is sent as a political prisoner to Akielos when his uncle usurps the throne just days before Laurent’s twenty-first birthday. The arrangement is ostensibly temporary, intended merely to solidify the new alliance between Akielos and Vere that has sprung up in the wake of Damen’s unexpected rise to the throne after his father’s sudden illness and death.

But it is immediately clear to everyone that Laurent is not expected to return to Vere - he is meant to be a pet, no, a slave to Damianos, the Prince Killer. The man who murdered Laurent’s brother in cold blood. The man who made Laurent’s life what it is today.

Damen, for his part, treats Laurent as visiting, if heavily monitored, foreign royalty. But Laurent does not warm to this veneer of civility, and would much rather see the Akielon king dead than endure the pretense of dining beside him. 

That all changes when Laurent attempts one day to escape, veering his horse wildly off course during a dangerous hunt, and ends up nearly killed for his trouble. As he lays on the ground, dazed and in pain - a lot of pain, actually - dying, he thinks - suddenly Damianos is scrambling to his side, desperately shouting “Laurent!” 

Damen has never used Laurent’s familiar name before. Laurent regrets, briefly, that he hasn’t the strength to reach up and take Damen down with him as punishment for using it now, before falling unconscious. 

... Laurent dreams.

He dreams of strong arms around him, and long nights spent in conversation; days’ worth of idle touches, sweet kisses, simple pleasure shared in quiet moments. Laurent dreams of skin - acres of it, rolling out before him, against him, bronze and gleaming, slick with sweat. 

He feels hot. In his more lucid moments, he thinks he must have a fever. 

In less lucid moments that stretch on like days, like weeks, that heat transforms itself into something else entirely. Laurent dreams, over and over again, of soft lips against his own; of keening into olive skin as pleasure is driven into him, hot and fierce and inescapable, again and again; of being held up and fucked within an inch of his sanity, and of welcoming it, laughing the entire time; losing his breath, gasping out loud, and then laughing again. He dreams of moaning someone’s name. 

“Damen.” Always that name, “Damen? Damen. _Damen_.” 

A thousand times, on a thousand days, and never the same way twice. 

Years and years, Laurent thinks he dreams of. Years and years of disagreements, of utter exasperation, and of happiness the likes of which Laurent can hardly comprehend. Years and years of kisses, of making love, and of being made love to. And always that same set of lips and those same brown eyes, growing laugh lines and then spots around them, but never growing any less bright. 

Always that same man.

When Laurent’s fever finally breaks and he wrenches upright in bed, in the palace at Ios, Laurent cannot immediately separate current reality from delirium. For a moment, all he can think is that name, the one he must have heard _himself_ say enough times now to fill nigh on forty years. Whispered in reverence; shouted in anger; coaxed from his throat in broken, rhythmic staccato. 

_Damianos._

When the man himself comes into the room not an hour later, having been alerted to Laurent’s waking by the physician, he sits gingerly before Laurent. Holding his weight carefully, as if he were the one suffering from a nearly mortal wound. 

Laurent reaches out and presses a palm flat against Damen’s chest. Damen does not immediately react, staring at Laurent in cautious bemusement. Laurent squeezes, as viciously as he can make himself. Damen winces. 

Laurent unclasps the pin from Damen’s shoulder wordlessly, and the fabric falls away. Laurent stares at the bruise spreading over the man’s heart, inky dark. He can see it is just beginning to fade around the edges into that sickly yellow color of healing wounds. It looks painful.

Laurent looks back at Damen’s face. 

Well. They’ve got some shit to work out. 


	15. Canon Role Reversal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For most people, Fate does not allow for second chances. What, then, if you find yourself the cause of the death of your soulmate? The scythe that cuts down your own single, great chance? What do you do then?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... and then I had this other idea, and I thought, “oh. Ow. That hurt. This hurts me.” And then I wrote it down and posted it, HERE YOU GO!

Laurent is overthrown by his uncle in a midnight coup, just days before his twenty first birthday. And finds himself sent in secret to be a bedslave for Damianos, the Akielon Crown Prince and Laurent’s most hated enemy.

Damen does not suspect who Laurent is at first, and treats him as he would any slave - albeit one who is frightened, untrained, and must therefore be treated with more than the usual care.

Laurent resents him for it.

However, slowly, Damen comes to admire Laurent’s intelligence and mannerisms as well as his looks, and Laurent comes to see that Damen is, in fact, a good man. They grow to respect one another.

Then they grow to something more - just burgeoning, barely there, but Laurent knows he cannot allow it to continue; can’t allow this to blossom into what he knows is coming. Can’t let himself begin to crave Damen’s company and, hideously, Damen’s gentle, reverent touch.

Damen has begun to suspect there is more to Laurent’s identity, and Laurent cannot let Damen discover the truth. Because he knows, he can tell that Damen wants to help him. He wants to hold Laurent close and protect him, and to—

Laurent made a vow.

Laurent lives now, only to fulfill that vow. No amount of kindness from Damianos now can change the fact of what Damen has done. And Laurent has to kill him for it.

Laurent brings a dagger with him the next time Damen invites him to lunch privately in his chambers. Laurent allows Damen to kiss him, to brush his fingers along his jaw, and to hold him, just once.

And then Laurent looks him in the eyes. He feels his own begin to sting against his will, hot tears spilling and blurring his vision.

Damen brushes a thumb along Laurent’s cheek, looking at him in quiet concern. Laurent’s eyelashes flutter. He leans into the contact.

And then he drives the dagger home.

Damen’s fall to the floor is slow, and at first Laurent merely watches it happen. There is an air of unreality to it that only breaks when Damen looks from his chest to Laurent’s face and says, shocked, “Laurent.”

He coughs blood which spatters across Laurent’s skin. Then he whispers, softly and with more emotion than Laurent can bear, “Our Brother of Vere.” And still, his eyes do not change - that bright intelligence, and no betrayal. Only an impossibly calm, sorrowful understanding.

“I am sorry,” Laurent whispers, at the same time that Damianos says, “I am so sorry.”

And then Laurent gets the memories.

And his chest— _hurts_, and the panic sets in, sudden and fierce, like a forest fire.

“Damen,” he slurs, the image of the man lying before him blurring into images of him laughing, aging, _living_. Growing old and wise, and impossibly more lovely by the year; by the decade; beside Laurent.

Laurent doesn’t remember falling to his knees beside Damen, taking Damen’s head in his lap and pressing frantic hands against the bleeding gash in a desperate, futile attempt to keep the life inside him.

He doesn’t remember the guards bursting in at the sound of his own wracking sobs, his cries of Damen’s name that devolved into wordless pleas. He doesn’t even remember, really, being dragged away from Damen’s corpse and deposited back into his locked rooms.

He remembers Damen’s face, though. The memories careening through Laurent’s mind’s eye must have been reflected in Damen’s own, for Damen lifted a hand to Laurent’s cheek, smiling like the happiest man alive while drowning in a pool of his own blood. Then he pushed a strand of golden hair behind Laurent’s ear, gazing at him, and murmured, “I remember...” Before falling silent.

Laurent remembers very little after that.

Eventually, Laurent supposes Damen’s hand had fallen away, and Laurent had then screamed loud enough to prompt the guards. His only evidence of that, though, is a brilliant crimson smear across his pale cheek that turns rusty and stays there - until a slave is sent days later to force Laurent to wash and dress and ride.

Laurent’s uncle had perhaps anticipated Laurent’s killing of the Akielon Crown Prince. It would have been an easy way to disrupt the Akielon royal line, with the added benefit of making Laurent a conveniently irresponsible-looking scapegoat; undeniably unfit for the throne, and sentenced to a reasonable death. But Laurent imagines Uncle hadn’t counted on Laurent’s being the soulmate of said Akielon Prince.

In Vere, the murdering of one’s soulmate is seen as the most heinous of crimes. No matter that there is no way to know the identity of one’s soulmate until death has already taken them - even an accidental killing is seen as unforgivable by Veretian law. Ignorance of Fate’s intention is no excuse for the crime of destroying the life whose existence was meant to be your greatest, unearned gift. In Vere, the penalty for such a crime is death by the same means used to effect on the victim; so that at least in death, they might be Fated to be equals.

But in Akielos, the standard is different - usually, the killer is allowed to live on under house arrest for the remainder of their natural life. Exceptions are made in those cases where there are additional victims, but generally, the standard practice is not execution; the general consensus being that the pain of having murdered one’s own soulmate, and of having to live every day with the ghost of the life one has lost, is punishment enough.

However, Laurent’s soulmate was no mere man, or even a mere lord. Laurent has murdered, in cold blood, the heir to the throne of Akielos. The love of his life. There is no precedence for this.

Furthermore, it quickly becomes known that Laurent is the ’missing and presumed dead’ Prince of Vere, the Regent having claimed Laurent upon hearing the news of Damen’s death. Hoping to ingratiate himself with Theomedes and Kastor, the new King of Vere declares that Laurent had run from his duties as prince in order to exact revenge for his elder brother’s death. Laurent, it is said, was not drugged and bundled off to an enemy kingdom and abandoned in a foreign court; no, Laurent infiltrated the court of Ios of his own accord, with the express purpose of murdering Damianos. The Akielons, Laurent’s uncle says, are free to do with the traitorous prince as they like.

So it is that Laurent is shoved onto a horse, marched across half the country, and placed under house arrest at Marlas. Nikandros’ home will keep him locked away out of sight while the kingdom mourns and the politicians decide what to do with him. The guards who escort him there, led by a young captain named Pallas, seem simultaneously to hate him and pity him in equal measure. As the days progress, however, and Laurent remains shocky and unresponsive, their faces slowly turn from a mutinous, roiling rage to confusion, and finally to a grey-faced, disturbed concern.

Nikandros is the only one whose expression never changes. In the glimpses that Laurent manages to catch of the man, the Kyros of Delpha’s eyes burn with an intensity that never dulls. In those eyes is reflected the heartbreak of a boy who has lost his best friend; the guilt and impotence of a soldier who has failed in his duty, a shield that has lost its purpose. There is loathing there, black and thick enough for Laurent to taste, fury like sparks flying in a fit of smoke.

And yet, buried deep beneath all of that, Laurent can see a bottomless well of grief, and a gut-wrenching, unwilling empathy for Laurent; it seems that, at his core, Nikandros is a man who understands that for however much he has lost, Laurent has lost all the same and more.

They do not speak. But Laurent is allowed to go where he will on the grounds of Marlas, do what he wants. It matters little where he goes, now. The guards follow him, and nothing changes.

Laurent visits the place where Auguste died. He falls to a sitting position in what is now an endless field of tiny white flowers, and stares around him, stupidly.

He does not know what to do now. He does not know what the point of any of this is. Laurent thinks, he doesn’t know what the point of any of it ever was, anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hnnnggg...*


	16. Alternate End to Charcy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick little alternate version of the fallout from the Battle of Charcy in the third book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MOST of this is lifted directly from the canon. I just really liked the idea of taking this scene and changing that one element, adding the consequences of near-death experiences from this alternate universe. All credit goes to Pacat for those lines.

Damen entered Laurent’s command tent at Fortaine, its twills of draping silk mocking, like the pellucid blue eyes upon him; Laurent casually watching him crush the delicate embroidered rugs beneath his muddied feet. 

It was a miracle that Damen was walking on his own at all. The gash in his shoulder was wrapped tightly, packed and stitched and hidden beneath the folds of Damen’s cloak. It made little difference; Damen knew he looked exactly like he had just returned from the brink of death. His eyes were hooded and ringed with heavy bruises, visible even against his darker skin. The last time he had seen his own likeness, brought to him in a glass two days previous by a frightened squire, his face had looked haggard, mouth a grim slash from suppressing grief and pain.

Everything ached.

But what was worse, what somehow managed to hurt more than the aftereffects of his recent brush with mortality, was that flat, emotionless pallor of Laurent’s eyes.   
  
Not three feet away, Laurent stood exquisitely attired, leaned with a single shoulder against the tent pole, watching him.

Laurent said, “Hello, lover.”

Damen said, hard as a axe strike, “Charcy is won.”

“I thought it would be.” 

Damen suppressed the urge to take that like a physical blow. Instead, he straightened his spine, clenching his teeth hard against the way the movement made his stitches pull. 

“Your men think you’re a coward. Nikandros thinks you deceived us. That you sent us to Charcy and left us to die there by your uncle’s sword.”

Laurent’s eyes flickered toward Damen’s shoulder, quick and unwilling, giving something away. He said, casually, “And is that what you think?”

“No,” said Damen. It took more effort than he liked to push the word out. But the answer was no less true for the way it hurt. “Nikandros doesn’t know you.” 

“And you do.” 

Damen looked at the arrangement of Laurent’s weight, the careful way he was holding his body. He was still leaning that one shoulder against the tent pole, angled away from Damen, subtly defensive. His left side.

The side that held, and hid his heart. 

Damen remembered the visions he’d seen in those moments, lying prone on the field after felling the Regent’s imposter and falling from his horse. The dreams, clear as memories sliding across his vision while he sweated and swallowed tinctures; while his wound was washed and dressed, the needle savaging his flesh. All so much in contrast to the feathery feel of lips against his own, of hungry touches stolen, given, longed for, and remembered.

Here, now, standing before Laurent in this pristine silken tent, Damen remembered the way he now knew it _should_ have been. Courting Laurent slowly, carefully, as he would have, had they had the time. As he would still have given anything to do, if only... 

Damen was not going to lose him. And he was not going to let Laurent lie to him about this, either. 

Deliberately, he stepped forward and clasped Laurent’s left shoulder, thumb spread low on Laurent’s chest.

Nothing, for a moment. Damen tightened his grip, and ground in with his thumb. Harder. He watched Laurent turn ashen. Finally, Laurent said _“Stop.”_

He let go. Laurent had wrenched back and was clutching his shoulder, palm pressed low over his heart. 

After a long moment, Damen reached for him again, though softly this time. Laurent was staring at him, his eyes oddly wide. With gentle fingers, Damen carefully opened Laurent’s shirt, just enough to get a good look at the evidence - and Laurent let him, silent, his head turned away, refusing to meet Damen’s eyes.

The bruise was dark, purpling to black across Laurent’s heart, stark against the white skin of his chest. Yellowing at the edges very slightly, it was only just showing the barest beginnings of healing. Laurent would have had this by now for three days. Damen had heard the aching never went away.

“You wouldn’t break an oath,” Damen said, past the feeling in his chest. “Even to me.”

”_Even_ to you?”

The moment was here. Too little too late, and no second chances, but Damen was alive and Laurent was here, and Damen had to tell him. Even if it was laughably redundant at this point. 

”I’ve come to tell you who I am,” Damen said. Laurent scoffed, a harsh sound, high pitched and strange. 

”I know who you are, Damianos.” 

Damen bowed his head at that. “I know,” he said. Laurent would have lived with the memories, Fate’s memories, for three days now as well. He would know. But Laurent was continuing.

“Did you think,” said Laurent, “I wouldn’t recognize the man who killed my brother?” Damen heard it, as the interior of the tent seemed to change, so that all of the objects in it took on a different shape. “I knew in the palace when they dragged you in front of me,” said Laurent. The words continued, steady, relentless. “I knew in the baths when I ordered you flayed. I knew—“ 

“At Ravenel?” said Damen. Drawing breath with difficulty, he faced Laurent while the seconds passed. When his wound protested the action, he did not flinch. “If you knew,” said Damen, “how could you—“

”Let you fuck me?” Laurent regarded him for a long, awful moment in silence. Damen ached to see the truth within that look; the control, the face, pale at any time, now white. Then Laurent let out a soft breath. He looked away, and when he spoke, his words were jagged, a blade broken off at the hilt. “I guess Fate always gets its way in the end, doesn’t it?”

“No,” said Damen quietly, the word heavy with meaning. “It doesn’t. I almost died. We almost lost this.” 

”I hate you,” said Laurent. He was looking at Damen again, and in his face was something very young and bewildered. “I hate you so much, and I _want_ to hate you. But you...” He made a hopeless, angry noise in the back of his throat. “You make it impossible. At the palace, I hated you so much I thought I’d choke on it. If my uncle hadn’t stopped me, I would have killed you. I still would, if... If you were the way I wanted you so desperately to be. If you were the monster that I needed, then it wouldn’t have mattered if you were my—“ Laurent glared at Damen, but the fire was going out of him. He said, “But you weren’t. Aren’t. Instead, you saved my life, and every time I needed you, you were there, and I hated you for that too.”

Laurent seemed to remember his open shirt, then, and began to lace it back up. Only half aware of the action, even as he performed it.

Laurent said, “You are not the man from my nightmares. You are the man in my memories.” He tied off the laces. “No matter the differing circumstances. You are still that same man, that same infuriating, noble barbarian, that same honorable brute. Naive. Honest. You break me,” whispered Laurent. “I can’t stand it.”

”I know,” said Damen. “I know.” 

”You do,” said Laurent. “Yet you don’t— try.” 

”I would never try to hurt you.” 

“And yet.” 

”And yet,” said Damen. After a long, long moment, Laurent spoke again. 

“When Auguste died, I thought soulmates must be a myth,” he said. “They’re so rare. My uncle tried to—“ he stopped. “Tried to convince me otherwise. But I had decided. I would never let another man make me weak like that again. There could never be anything that would make me.

”And then,” said Laurent. “There’s you. You remind me of him. Auguste. He was noble like you. Good.” 

“So are you,” said Damen. Laurent looked at him.

”I don’t understand you at all.”

”I think you understand me better than anyone else I have ever known.” 

Laurent snorted delicately. “Just because I saw a few glimpses of a life we are not currently living—“

”No,” Damen cut him off. “Not just that. It wouldn’t matter to me either way, Fate or no Fate - Laurent, I am yours. I have been yours. I would have you.”

”On my back?” 

”On my throne.” Damen said, and Laurent’s eyes widened. “In my life, beside me for as long as you will have me. For the rest of my days, if you would have them. Fate be damned - I would have you now, exactly as you are, for the rest of our lives.” 

Laurent was breathing very carefully. ”You do not know me, as I am,” he said. “There are things about me in this life, that you know nothing about. Things I have— done. You promise too freely.”

”I promise nothing freely. Laurent, everything I offer, you have earned, and more. If there are things you would have me know, then I will hear them, and I will feel the same. And if you never tell me, then still I will feel the same. You are my soulmate - Fate has nothing to do with it. ‘Memories,’ would-have-beens, _should_-have-beens - they have nothing to do with it. I _choose you_. Here, now, today. I think,” said Damen, “if I gave you my heart, you would treat it tenderly.” 

Laurent let the word out on a breath. ”_Damen.” _Then he closed his eyes and vented a short, unsteady laugh into the silence. “Shit,” Laurent said. “Shit. _Kiss me.” _

Damen did.

**Author's Note:**

> If any of these receives demand for me to expand upon them, I may turn some of them into their own fics. Some of them are already basically halfway there. Leave me a comment, I like to talk to y’all. And let me know if any of you DO end up using the concept - I’d love to read your takes!


End file.
